The Return

A five-year-old Yazidi boy is released after nearly three years in ISIS captivity. Profoundly disturbed, brainwashed and weaponized by the abuse he endured, he displays violent hatred towards the world around him, and particular revulsion for his mother, who was held hostage alongside him. Imad considers himself to be an ISIS fighter and lashes out against children and adults alike in this intense horror film about a child possessed by terror. As menacing as his behaviour is, it is a mere imitation of the humiliation and brutality he was moulded by. He did exactly as he was told by ISIS in order to survive, and now, surrounded by other survivors, the love of his family and help from a therapist, will he thrive?

During the 30 years of the Baath ruling under Sadam in Iraq thousands of Iraqi Kurds and Shiites were either killed or disappeared. Around 182,000 people lost their lives when 4500 villages and townships were destroyed in Kirkuk, Soleimanieh, Dahouk and Erbil regions with the aim to exterminate the Kurds and to arabize Kurdistan. Having found one of the mass graves after 24 years in the southern deserts of Iraq, became the basis of a movie describing the living conditions of these villages inhabited by mostly mothers, daughters, wives or sisters of those victims.